Free Her Wyoming Man by Cheryl St.john

she was unsatisfied with his home or the way he had welcomed her.
    He shifted on the sofa to look more fully into her eyes. She offered him a warm smile.
    He raised his hand and stroked her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “You’re incredibly beautiful.”
    Her gossamer bubble of pleasure burst with the disappointment of that familiar endearment from his lips. Beautiful was nothing she hadn’t heard a hundred times. It meant nothing. “Isn’t it true that beauty is in the eye of the beholder?”
    He slid his fingers into the hair at her nape. “There isn’t a beholder on this earth who wouldn’t agree.”
    Encouraged, she slowly leaned toward Nathan, keeping her expression soft, her body language yielding. “I’m very happy to be right here, Nathan.”
    As she’d hoped, he leaned toward her and their lips met. It was gentle, his kiss, undemanding…sweet. Like no other kiss she’d ever experienced, not even like the first kiss they’d shared—or like the impulsive one in the stream that day—because this time she’d been prepared for the contact to be enjoyable.
    She reached to skim her fingertips along his jaw and frame his warm cheek with her palm.
    Nathan slid closer on the divan to take her shoulders into his embrace and hold her more tightly. She liked the taste of him, the feel of his arms around her, his clean scent. She liked everything about his kiss…particularly the way he made her feel as though she was someone special, someone deserving of his attention.
    Inexplicably, a question came to her, a thought that disturbed her and stole a measure of her joy. Had Nathan kissed other women since his first wife’s death? Would she care? Had he taken a lover…or visited a parlor house? It was the nature of men to sate their basic physical needs, and he was a man like any other. Would it matter to her if he had?
    Ella wished she hadn’t thought of the possibility. Considering his intimate exploits made her an even bigger hypocrite.
    When had it started to matter that he want her for any reason other than securing her position as his wife? Why should she care if he had bedded a hundred women? Since when did it pain her to hear a man compliment her beauty? She had come all this way to find a respectable position and live her life freely, and that was still her mission.
    But something had happened since she’d met and married Nathan. Something she couldn’t have anticipated or planned for. Now she cared what this man thought of her.
    She moved away enough to speak. “Will you walk me upstairs to my room?”
    “All right,” he said, his voice gruff.
    She took his hand and got to her feet. He stood beside her, towering over her and gazing down into her eyes. She turned and led the way up the stairs, pausing outside her room. “Will you light the lamps?”
    She opened the door, and stood aside for him to enter.

Chapter Eight
    H e found the matches and lit a wall sconce and the oil lamp on her bureau.
    “It’s so quiet here at night,” she said softly. “In the city I heard more commotion.”
    He stood, facing the door, but without moving toward it. “I suppose it takes some getting used to.”
    “I suppose it does.”
    He turned to look at her, his gaze dropping from her face to caress her form beneath her clothing. “Good night, Ella.”
    “Good night.”
    Nathan closed her door and strode down the hall, his footsteps muffled on the carpet runner. He returned to his study and banked the fire.
    She was in his blood, that woman. Everything about her, the sound of her voice stating the most innocent fact, her intoxicating scent, the sheen of her lustrous, dark hair and the curves beneath her clothing, everything combined to set him on fire. How would he last six months with her nearness an exquisite torment? What had he been thinking?
    For safety, he set an iron grate in front of the fireplace and headed up to his room. He lit a lamp, then deliberately walked to his bureau and opened the top